jumpingjacktrash:

audiencecat:

jumpingjacktrash:

othercat2:

jumpingjacktrash:

my young padawans, i have a secret to impart: when you stop trying to fit in, and just do your thing with verve and confidence, it transcends social awkwardness and becomes the new normal. when you present your ways as How Things Are and your needs as Commands, rather than begging the indulgence of their accomodation, people fall right in line.

you don’t do eye contact? gaze at the horizon like an old sailor recalling the adventures of times past. let them admire your profile.

you don’t know when to stop doing eye contact? stare into their souls.

somebody’s ‘joke’ is too plausible and they get on your case for taking it seriously? tell them to google poe’s law. tell them you’re sure they’ll be funnier next time. tell them to Git Gud.

someone’s noise level is threatening your sanity? tell them to quit that damn racket!

flickering fluorescents in your office keep making your eyes reboot? put up a beach umbrella over your cubicle. don’t say “i can’t handle the flickery lights,” say, “the flickery lights are unacceptable and i refuse to deal with them.”

take control. you deserve to be in charge of your environment and interactions as much as anyone else does. you don’t have to ask for accomodations like they’re charity. you don’t have to be a beggar. you don’t have to Make Nice. some people will dislike you for it, but so what? the world is full of people who hate us for existing, and we have the advantage that we genuinely won’t notice cheryl from accounting giving us the lemonface because we didn’t like the battery powered dancing flower on her desk that played ‘happy birthday’ every twelve minutes and fifteen seconds.

If you are in grade school, in special ed, do not stare into the soul of someone who has threatened to beat you up though. Also don’t do this when you’re in highschool, or possibly college or even work because you might make a paranoid person even more paranoid and they will beat you up or threaten to do so if you are not built like a brick wall.

well, it might make them more violent or it might make them back down. it depends. for me, it more often made them back down, but i’ve always been a concentrated package of controlled violence even when i was fun sized. if you don’t want to fight, yeah, go the ancient mariner route.

As a tiny ball of rage and hair during my highschool years, I can confirm that if you look like you’re gonna throw down, most bullies will indeed back off. The ones that don’t were 90% likely to hit you anyway.

in fact, i’ve found that my autistic ways helped me in many of those situations, because as soon as i recognized that the confrontation was inevitably going to become physical, i just went for it. bullies get really thrown when you don’t go through the whole Ritual of Mutual Shoving, and just step inside their guard and give them a right hook to the kidney. Perfect Victory, Babality: .75 seconds.

being built like a brick wall is not necessary. i stopped growing in 8th grade, due to a combination of insomnia, stress, and early-onset osteoarthritis; i’m 5′4″ and never bothered wearing thick-soled shoes. the gutterpunks used to call me ‘professor’ because i knew all the things and would rather talk than raise hell. but they also came to me when the nazi skins were acting up, because i knew no fear and could back down several jackasses at once just by basically acting like rocket raccoon.

if you take control of the situation, it is a very rare adversary who can take it back from you. for the most part they’ll just give in with poorly-disguised relief. the few who fight you on it will mostly flail around and be ineffective.

not that i’m advising you take to violence if you don’t have to. violence honestly sucks and is the worst conflict resolution method. but if you’re in a situation where it keeps coming up, and you keep not having reasonable alternatives, then lean into it, and make it yours.